Parent's Day on the Teaching Circuit

Today was parents day for two of my classes that meet three times a week. 7 and 9 year olds.
The first hour of class was business as usual and then the second hour the parents were allowed to come in and watch. For the younger ones, luckily only like 5 or 6 parents showed up. LOL. So I did my little presentation of "Hi parents!!! My name is David and I'm from California USA. One of the parents in the older kids' class raised her eyebrows. Probably thinking, ah yes a pretentious beach boy.
Well lady, maybe! LOL. Although I don't think I'm pretentious. HAHA, she probably wasn't thinking that at all but was probably impressed because California is a beautiful state. Anyway, I did my thing. The kids in the younger class were pretty well behaved as both me and the Chinese teacher started warning them weeks ago. Now for the other class with the older 9 year old kids about 17 parents showed up! And the kids were so quiet and wouldn't perform the song we practiced very loud or the dialogue we had worked out from the book very loud. I made the little bastards do it twice with a smile all while talking between my teeth at them that they better be louder and better the second time or they will be doing a lot of writing tomorrow (I have to do a make-up class with them tomorrow, actually both classes tomorrow, because of a day I had to miss for my one month training followup.). So the second time the little devils were louder and more cooperative. I didn't really talk to any of the parents. I'm guessing they don't know much English so when class was over, that was it. I packed up my stuff as usual and that was that. I've been anticipating this day over and over for the last month once I heard what dates it was and today was the day. But seriously, I just tuned all the parents out in the back and made believe they weren't there after introductions were over.

In conclusion, kids from any culture are either evil or nice.

But now it's Friday night and I've got a couple of beers chillin' in the freezer and got some food for cooking. It will be a mellow Friday night I reckon.

Hope everyone enjoys your Friday mornings (most of you), and the rest enjoy your Friday night!

A Thursday

What's up guys.  

Does anyone even read this blog?

Oh well.

Anyway, I finally posted pics of Kaohsiung that I went to almost two weeks ago.  The album is named accordingly and can be found at the usual address of: my photography site (click!).

Today the weather is giving us a break and is cooler today which is nice.

I only have one class to teach on Thursdays, which is today.  So only a two hour day as opposed to a 4 hour day.

I think my next photo adventure will be when I go and visit the Taipei county Blossom Festival this weekend.  Should make for some good pics I would think.

If you want to comment, just click on the comment link under or near this post.

Hope everyone who reads this is well.

Tropical Drinkin'

A night out at the bar.  It was cool.   Me and my friend were relaxing on the patio, 80 degrees, then an electrical storm started.  So cool!

What else could be do but stay put under our umbrella and order another drink!

Then it stopped just as fast as it started and we left.

HAHA!

Howdy All

Today is Tuesday.  And it is a hot motherfucking day so far today. No humidity yet but it's all a matter of time before that kicks in.  Wanted to share some pics from my 25 mile bike ride two days ago.  Me and some friends rode from Taipei county to Dansuei.  I had no idea how far it was and probably would have opted out if I had known but it was fun.  Once we got to our destination with our rented bikes, we dropped off the bikes and walked around a bit, had some street food, some beers, then headed back on the subway.

Pics are above obviously.  You can see the route we took, the famous Taipei 101 in the background (tallest building completed thus far in the world), some wild puppies eating a fish, some deep fried sweet potato, and other random crap.  I tried to put them in order but this site is not real easy to do that.

That's all from the update desk for now.

Saturday

Ah, 1.5 days off starting now.  What shall I do today on this Saturday?

It's kinda rainy out today but not cold by any account.

I do know that a few beers should be in the picture somewhere...

SATURDAY IN TAIWAN!

Wooohoo!

LOL.

I think Saturday is Saturday no matter where you are.

Unless you are on the moon.  That would probably be pretty boring unless you had some cool aliens to keep you company and talk about all the silly planets in the sky.

Finally!!!

Today I received my ARC card.  It's like a green card to live in Taiwan.  All the other teachers got one buy mine was taking forever.  I seriously thought they were reconsidering me as a teacher or something and buying time and then would tell me I suck and have to leave the country.  HAHA!    But I got it today and I also got my National Health Insurance card.

I can now come and go as many times as I want into the country within the card validity time which is one year but renewable, should I renew my work contract / permit.

I was so worried I would have to sing Genesis' "Illegal Alien" song forever!!!

Some of you probably have no idea what song this is...  LOL!  

Well, I've included the lyrics here for your convenience!

Got out of bed, wasn't feeling too good
With my wallet and my passport, a new pair of shoes
The sun is shining so I head for the park,
With a bottle of Tequila, and a new pack of cigarettes

I got a cousin and she got a friend,
Who thought that her aunt knew a man who could help
At his apartment I knocked on the door,
He wouldn't come out until he got paid.
Now don't tell anybody what I wanna do
If they find out you know that they'll never let me through, cos

It's no fun being an illegal alien
No, it's no fun being an illegal alien

Down at the office had to fill out the forms
A pink one, a red one, the colours you choose,
Up to the counter to see what they think
They said "it doesn't count man, it ain't written in ink".
I don't trust anybody, least not around here, cos

It's no fun being an illegal alien, I tell ya
It's no fun being an illegal alien, no no no no no
It's no fun being an illegal alien, I mean it when I tell ya that
It's no fun being an illegal alien,
An illegal alien, O.K.


Consideration for your fellow man
Would not hurt anybody, it sure fits in with my plan
Over the border, there lies the promised land
Where everything comes easy, you just hold out your hand

Keep your suspicions, I've seen that look before
But I ain't done nothing wrong now, is that such a suprise
But I've got a sister who'd be willing to oblige
She will do anything now to help me get to the outside

So don't tell anybody what I wanna do
If they find out you know that they'll never let me through, because

It's no fun being an illegal alien, I tell ya
It's no fun being an illegal alien, and it's getting me down
It's no fun being an illegal alien, no no no no no
It's no fun being an illegal alien, yeah yeah yeah

It's no fun (not much fun) being an illegal alien, I tell ya that
It's no fun being an illegal alien, I tell ya
It's no fun being an illegal alien, no no no
It's no fun (not bloody much fun) being an illegal alien,
It's no fun being an illegal alien, and that's what I am. 

Ta Ta from Taiwan for now!

This and that and Kaohsiung

Hey all, I'm back at this address as I said.  

Well, the weather in Taiwan is finally starting to show it's nasty side.  It started heating up this last weekend.  At first it was okay as it was dry heat.  But then just like the flick of a switch, HUMIDITY!!!  And it's not even that high yet but to me, who is from So Cal, AKA what used to be desert, totally notices.  Alright, alright.  I'm just whining.  It's not as bad as Florida... YET.  

In other news, teaching is smoothing out as I'm getting the hang of the whole thing.  One thing I didn't bargain on, though, is the amount of time I spend grading shit and prepping lesson plans.  And I don't get paid for that.  That's a little, actually, really it is, quite annoying.  But that's the way it goes.  I hear that as you do it a while, you learn shortcuts to cut down on the time it takes.

This last weekend I went down to Kaohsiung , which is on the southern tip of the island.    Took us aboiut 90 minutes on the high speed rail which goes 280 kmh.  Figure that out in miles and it's pretty fast.  It's a quieter city than Taipei.  We went to the zoo, looked around at night at all the lights for photo ops, and got some food.  We also got a massage at 3 am in the morning.  Where else can you do that?  And I'm talking about a real massage, not something nasty.  LOL.  All for only 700 NT for an hour which is like 22 US dollars.  Not bad at all.  Sunday we lounged around the beach all day.

So on your left you can see pics of the zoo and night shots and the beach.  And also the famous Night Market of the island.  Actually, Taiwan has many many night markets, but this one is one of the two famous ones I think.  Basically, it's a big outdoor corridor that sells all kinds of junk and food.   And as the name implies, it only happens at night.  Basically, every friend food you can think of is sold here on a stick and every kind of trinket you can think of, and probably don't need, is at the night market!

That's all for now.  

Until next time.